1393: The 5 Permission Slips That Kill Every Plan You're On

0:00Ever notice how ads always pop up at the worst moments when the killer's identity is about to be revealed? During that perfect meditation flow, on Amazon Music we believe in keeping you in the moment. That's why we've got millions of ad-free podcast episodes, so you can stay completely immersed in every story, every reveal, every breath. Download the Amazon Music app and start listening to your favorite podcast ad-free, included with Prime. Ready, Seth? Go get your Toyota today with great deals on your favorite cars at your local Toyota dealer, like sporty new cameras and stylish corollas. Visit Toyota.com to find out more. Toyota, let's go places. Hello and welcome back to the Primal Potential Podcast. I am Elizabeth Fenton. If you have ever made a plan that you genuinely believed would work and you felt excited about it and you felt committed to the goal, the goal mattered to you.

1:06And then watch yourself not follow through this episode for you. And that pattern has very little to do with the plan. And it has a lot to do with the core pattern in your life that you haven't addressed yet. And it has a lot to do with a need for defense that you probably haven't realized exists. See, most people, when they have this long held pattern of creating a plan and not following through or like doing well for a little while and then falling off a cliff, they think the problem is either motivation or the details of the plan or that they don't want it enough. But if you have a core pattern that is eroding your follow through and you either don't know it or you don't address it, it's going to follow you into every single plan that you make. And that's what we are talking about today. We're talking about that moment where things start to slip.

2:07This is a time of year, at least where I live, I live in the United States. And so March is where we're starting to think that like spring is around the corner. And I'm starting to look at my bins of spring summer clothes and thinking about packing up my sweaters and the corduroy and all of the winter, winter gear of a New England gal. And we start thinking about like being at the beach or wearing our bathing suit or for a lot of people that I've talked to. They're they're feeling the effects of the fact that maybe part of the way they got through the winter was overspending. And it was something to do when there wasn't as much to do because the days were shorter and there wasn't as much sunlight and the weather was kind of gross. So you're maybe feeling that pressure of like, I don't even want to look at my credit card statement and I don't even want to deal with it. If I just pay the minimum, it's going to last forever. But if I try to tackle the whole thing, it's going to be so stressful. We're changing the clocks where I live anyway.

3:10Days are starting to feel like spring and you start thinking about making some changes. Right. Many that becomes another initiation of the same cycle you've been in and out of for years. New plan, new start date, new burst of motivation, spring's coming. Let's go. Let's get back to the gym. And then that predictable moment comes when you negotiate with yourself and the standard gets dropped. You know, I was observing the way how it's just so easy for one exception to become another to become another to become another and then it's three or four weeks of back to back to back to back to back exceptions. Right. My husband was away on a ski trip and so it was kind of like, well, you know, I'm solo with the kids and then we'll actually back up before that school vacation, right. School vacation. So, you know, like making it special for the kids. And then we had a big blizzard and we were without power. And nobody could go anywhere. So there was that. Then my husband was away. And then after my husband's away, then it's, we're going to a marriage conference.

4:15So we're away and we're doing dinners out with friends. And then it's my grandmother's 99th birthday. Right. It's my grandmother's 99th birthday. It's the anniversary of Dagmy's death. It's a girlfriend's kids birthday party, right. Like every other day, there's a reason to lower the bar. Not to mention the daily stuff like it was a stressful day at work and the kids were sick and you know, the power went out and all those other little things that can be the reason that we say, oh, well, not today. Oh, well, I can't work out today. Oh, well, I can't get up with my alarm today. Oh, well, I can't execute my to-do list if we let it. If we let it. The moment that you start to negotiate with yourself on the like, oh, well, you know, kids were sick today. Oh, well, you know, Chris is away. And so whatever. The moment when you negotiate with yourself and this standard gets dropped, that is the opportunity. Here's what's happening with most people. They generalize the problem. If I would say to a potential client like, hey, what do you think is behind the fact that you haven't reached this goal despite the fact that you know what to do and you know what not to do and you really, really want it and it matters to you like, what do you think it is?

5:28They would paint with a very broad brush almost every single time and they would say, I just make a lot of excuses or I'm just super inconsistent. I do well for a little while and then I don't do well for a little while. Because they're painting with a broad brush, they're missing something that's actually very clear and specific. And if we tackled it in a clear and specific way, we'd be able to sink our teeth into it and make some meaningful changes. When you see the pattern and when you address it head on, everything changes, right? There is an intelligent pattern to how it falls apart for you. There is. We have the opportunity to stop treating it like a personality flaw or like, you know, this big catastrophic moment of disappointing ourselves again or stop seeing it as sabotage and start treating it. Ready? Start treating it as a predictable access point. That's when things begin to change. I've said this before and I want to make sure we're all on the same page. Most people are living on offense, right? Offense is the plan. I need to cut out sugar. I'm going to do 75 hard. I'm going to start a GLP one. I'm going to get up earlier. I'm going to follow the budget.

6:35Offense is like that aspirational plan. It's when you feel motivated. It's when it sounds good. It always looks great on paper. But the threat to your progress is never part of the plan you write on paper, right? It wasn't factored in, but it should be the threat to those wonderful, wonderful plans. No, not knock on the plans, but the threat is the pattern of the way it falls apart for you over and over again. And defense isn't just for what you do in the seconds right before you drift. It's for what's happening in those seconds right before you drift, right? Because that's where the pattern shows up. That's where the story shows up. That's where the negotiation shows up. That's where the standard itself becomes negotiable. And if we don't build a defense, then it's going to follow us to the best plan in the world, right? You're still going to have that escape valve that you say yes to every time. It's a core pattern. So let's talk about that. I like to think of these core patterns as permission slips.

7:35And I've identified five primary categories of permission slips and there's definitely some overlap and there's probably a hundred categories, but these are the biggest ones. And the label doesn't matter as much as seeing the specifics of your own pattern. But these these permission slips are like the way we give ourselves a pass, right? Not today, you know, I've been so good. I deserve it. So I'm going to give you the five categories today and I'm going to teach on a couple of them specifically, but ultimately it doesn't matter that you know the pattern as much as it matters that you change the pattern. Of course, it's impossible to change a pattern that you don't see. If you don't recognize it as a pattern, it's a whole lot harder to change it. I'm going to teach a couple of them not because the others don't matter, but if I try to go deep on all of them, we'll just it'll get monkey and muddley and it'll be too much. Even if I did teach all five chances are somebody's going to be like, okay, how do I change it? That's tougher and here's why that's what we do in defense foundations. That's why it's a small group because it looks different. So let me give you an example.

8:35One of the core patterns or one of the permission slip categories is procrastination. And the truth of the matter is that the antidote to your procrastination will look different than the antidote to my procrastination. So even if I wanted to teach it on the podcast, I can't because again, even if we're talking about the same category of procrastination, if we have 10 of us who are procrastinators, our antidote is going to be different. The way that we address the leak is going to be different because the way that procrastination shows up and the narrative that we have about it is going to be different. So there's a lot of people that are like, oh, you're a procrastinator, do these three things. Well, maybe that'll work and maybe it won't because one of the principles of defense is that it can't be bought. It has to be built, right? It is unique to you. All right. So let's talk about the five categories of permission slips. Ready? Procrastination, compensation, justification, resignation, and dismissal, which we also sometimes call practicality. One more time, procrastination, compensation, justification, resignation, and dismissal, which we sometimes refer to as practicality.

9:50A permission slip is basically the way you make it okay to abandon your standard. And here's the deal. It's very rarely some big dramatic thing like, I just, I'm done. I don't even care anymore. It's very rarely, well, like I was in a car accident today, so pizza's no big deal. It's rarely just, I'm over this. It's usually way more subtle. Like, I'm going to do it later. I'm just really busy today, right? I have a headache. And here we are jumping from one plan to the next, changing the plan over and over when the issue all along has been the pattern of permission slip. And when we do the work to change that, it's an absolute game changer. Here's what I need you to understand before we talk about two of these five categories. The pattern is portable. It travels with you. A new plan does not eliminate the pattern. It just gives the pattern a new place to show up. Right? So those five, again, procrastination, compensation, justification, resignation, and dismissal. And you might be like, well, you didn't cover mine. Yeah, you're right. Probably didn't, right?

10:56These are just like the five major buckets. And today we're going to talk specifically about procrastination and compensation. If you were following along this 10 part vault series, we did an entire episode, part eight of the vault, the consistency vault was about procrastination. So if that is one for you, that's definitely an episode to go back to. But let's start with, let's start with that. Let's start with procrastination. Most people think of procrastination as delay, right? I'm just putting it off until later. Procrastination is way more than that. Instead of thinking of it as pushing something off, I want you to think of it as a tax. I don't know about you. I don't like to pay taxes. I don't like being charged more than what the actual cost of something is. And that's what procrastination does, right? It costs you more than the actual thing itself, right? If I put off a workout, now that workout costs me more because now I'm up against greater activation energy. I'm up against, you know, coming from a more sedentary place. I'm up against inconsistency.

11:59Procrastination is a tax, right? You don't just postpone the task. You carry it with you the whole damn time. You don't get to set it down and walk away from it. You're carrying it mentally. I need to do that thing. I skipped my workout today. I saw, you know, you're still carrying it. You're carrying it in the background while you do other things kind of like when you leave a million programs running on your computer, it slows down the whole damn thing. Same thing with the way we mentally and emotionally carry the stuff we keep putting off. We carry it as mental clutter. We carry it as a weight that makes us quicker to frustration and quicker to quit because everything feels heavier. Sidebar, if you've listened to this for a while or if you've ever worked with me, you've heard me use the example of our, our house is very old. It was built in the 1700s and there's not a lot of closet space. And we have one primary closet downstairs, which kind of ends up being like, it's where we put toilet papers, where we put paper towels, is where we put the kids' book bags, is where we put, like, everything, beach stuff. You name it towels.

12:59And it quickly becomes just an absolute disaster. And the thing is, the longer that I put off dealing with it, the heavier and harder that felt. It doesn't get easier because I put it off. It gets heavier and harder. Not only does the mess continue to grow, meaning when I do get to it, it's going to take more time and effort, right? But also, I'm carrying that heaviness and frustration and irritation and it can set off my whole mood like everything's going fine. And then I open the closet door to get a backpack and I like step on something that's on the floor or I can't find it because it's buried and other things and it impacts everything. And then that shows up in the way that I'm making choices about how I communicate with my kids or how I communicate with my husband or if I'm going to do the rest of the tasks on my list or what I'm going to eat, right? We carry. We don't just postpone the task. We carry it with us. Procrastination is not neutral. It has never been neutral. It will never be neutral. We are volunteering difficulty for our future self, right? And your brain, and we talked about this in the mental math episode. I think that was 1392. That's an excellent episode. Go back and listen to it.

14:10What our brain does is it makes tomorrow sound like a better idea than it actually is. I'm going to say that again because you need to hear it. It makes later or tomorrow or not now sound like a better idea than it actually is. You've experienced this. You know, the alarm goes off and you're going to hit snooze and your brain is making that 10 minutes of snooze sound like a much better idea than it actually is because you're not really getting true rest. And you're making your morning more stressful than it needs to be, but manage your brain going to sell it like it is a deal. You know, tomorrow sounds calmer. Tomorrow sounds like you'll be more motivated. Tomorrow sounds like you're just going to magically have more time. But tomorrow has its own curve balls. And tomorrow has its own interruptions. And tomorrow has its own unexpected mess, right? So every single time you say later, whether it's an hour later or a day later or next week, you're stacking your task on top of tomorrow's unknown weight and you're carrying it the whole time. You're not setting it down as soon as you push it off till Monday. Now everything you do is harder and heavier because you're carrying the weight of not just one thing you put off. It's probably 20 things you put off.

15:18And procrastination shows up everywhere. Health, money, relationships, parenting, work. I'm going to eat better on Monday. I'm going to start the budget later. I'm going to have the hard conversation another time. I'm going to start, you know, holding the line with discipline with my kids later. I'm going to reduce my screen time another time. If procrastination is your core pattern, the plan doesn't matter. The plan doesn't matter because the pattern is portable. Wherever you go, it's going with you. You can have the best plan in the world of procrastination still going to show up and make delay sound reasonable, responsible, attractive, compelling, ideal, optimal, justified. One of the questions I like to ask myself is, am I making later easier or harder? One of the blessings of having little kids is that I know tomorrow is going to have curve balls. So if I dare say, like, I don't need to do that today, I can do it tomorrow. Well, you know, I know there's a fairly good chance that somebody's going to wake up puking, you know, and that I plan that my kids would be in school for a few hours, but nope, I'm going to be home with them.

16:25So that has really helped me be like, don't you dare put that on tomorrow. I don't know what's ahead for tomorrow. And that literally happened to me this week. Not only was my husband away, but Roman got sick. And so every plan that I had, my days were scheduled out. Okay, I have my mom coming over this day and my father and I'm not coming over this day. And so I'm going to work in these windows and these are the things I'm going to get done. And then just kidding, just kidding. But he's coming to help you, your kid sick, you're going to be sitting with him and trying to squeak in work, you know, after they go to bed at night. Am I making later easier or harder, not philosophically, operationally. If I take five minutes and I do this now, what is it removed from later? If I push it off, what am I stacking on to later? Right. And if you can't name when you're going to do it later, you're not making a plan, you're making a promise that you're also going to renegotiate. Procrastination loves vagueness. And we build defense when we start being specific. And this isn't about being a different person, right? This is about being familiar with your pattern and being able to interrupt it.

17:26And again, I just want to emphasize for those of you that are like, okay, how do I stop procrastinating? I can sit here and give you 100 things, but the reality is it's going to look different for everybody. The way that my mom procrastinates is entirely different than the way that I procrastinate and the way that she talks herself into it is entirely different than the way that I talk myself into it. And so the breakdown is going to be different and that's what we do in defense foundations. I'll say this again at the end of the episode, but scholarship applications for the four week defense foundations. It's like an abbreviated less expensive shorter duration version of defense is just four weeks instead of eight weeks. It's it's dramatically less expensive and we're doing some scholarships like we did in March. There was a huge response to that because I think a lot of people are feeling financial pressure right now. Maybe because of the economy, maybe because of politics, maybe a little bit of both and uncertainty around both of those things. You can complete a scholarship application. The sooner you do it, the more likely you are to get one of the available scholarships.

18:27I'll put that link in the show description. Let's talk about the other pattern. There's five, right? Let's talk about compensation. Compensation is this super persuasive one because it rarely sounds unreasonable. In fact, it often sounds like fairness. I've had a bad day, so this is okay because you don't know what I went through today at work. You know, you don't know what I went through today with my kids. I've been I've been busted my butt like today. Not only did I not have the work block that I thought I was going to have. Not only did I not have the extra set of hands with the kids so that I could work and I'm dealing with this kid. I also busted my ass for like five hours cleaning out two closets. And so this compensation permission slip is like, Dude, I easily got in 30,000 steps today. I've been moving like crazy. I hardly ate anything. And all of a sudden ice cream or pizza sounds very reasonable because I didn't really have lunch. And I've been moving like crazy. That was like quite a workout.

19:28I carried, I don't know, 50 bags of trash to either a truck to go be donated or to the dumpster. Like I was super, super active and all of a sudden look at that. I feel justified in a glass of wine that I said I wasn't going to have or an ice cream that is impulsive and not an intentional decision. Now, I want to be clear, I'm not saying you don't deserve rest. No, like we, if rest is health rest is rest is peace rest. You know, we're not here to just check boxes and go to bed exhausted, but people confuse things. Checking out and being restored are not the same. And for a lot of people, compensation looks like something that they then regret later. That is not restoration. That is destruction. So when we're saying we deserve the alcohol and we feel bad about it later, or we deserve the ice cream and our health suffers as a result or we don't sleep as well, or we deserve something that we can't really afford and we spend the money anyway, that is not restoration.

20:30That is not what you deserve. You do not live. You don't deserve to live underneath the pressure of that pattern. Right? What we get when we're in this compensation permission slip is not rest. We get numb. We get dull. We lose time. We lose sleep. We feel behind and we often carry resentment or disappointment or frustration that we did this thing and we still don't feel better. Likely, we feel worse. And then we're more tired the next day and here's the thing. It's a vicious cycle. We're more tired the next day or we're more disappointed the next day or we're more overwhelmed the next day. And then more likely to feel compensation come up again. And so the permission slip repeats because we didn't sleep well. So now we deserve it or because we're in a really bad mood and we deserve it. And that's why it's a core pattern, right? You don't deserve to check out. You deserve to check in. You deserve to be on top of your life. You deserve, I deserve to walk into my closet and feel a deep sigh of relief.

21:35You deserve to go to bed feeling proud. You deserve to be healthy. You deserve to be fit. You deserve to be free. You deserve to not be obsessed with the same goal and pursuit for years. Right? And I'm not saying you can't ever scroll and you can't ever have ice cream and you can't ever have wine. But let's not do it from a from a perspective that is about negotiating down a standard that we set. One of my standards is that I want my indulgences to be intentional and not impulsive. So trust me, I will take my kids out to ice cream or make homemade ice cream and enjoy the heck out of it. But I'm not negotiating down a standard on account of a story that I told that actually makes me show up as a person I don't want to be. Sometimes we just have to ask ourselves like what am I trying to get right now? You know, do I feel unappreciated? Do I feel behind? Do I feel overwhelmed? For me, I recognized the whole thing with the closet kind of came up because we moved our bedroom. And so then we had to switch closets from the upstairs closet to the downstairs closet.

22:36And it was just so overwhelming to me. And I had to look at, okay, I don't need a glass of wine or ice cream in response to this. I need to tackle the damn closets so that that's no longer a weight. Otherwise, I'm going to feel that resistance and that overwhelm and that aggravation every freaking day until I deal with it and it's going to grow. Name what you're really looking for, what you really want. And that's why that's another reason that makes this so personal. My version of checking out is not your version. My version of checking in is not your version. Some people are really, really supported by movement. Other people need more quiet time. Some people are transformed when their physical space is transformed and their brain suddenly feels like it can breathe and process. Some people need prayer. Some people need people. There's no universal solution. And God bless everybody out there who's trying to sell one. Kind of makes me cringe. But I know it happens. The other ones, justification, resignation, dismissal.

23:38We're not going to go into those today because again, I think it would just end up being too much information. We do go into them in a lot of detail in defense foundations and more importantly, way more importantly, is what do we do to break them and how can we approach it with the same tools but getting different outcomes because again, procrastination looks different for 10 procrastinators and justification looks different for 10 people who justify. So I'm going to drop in the show description that scholarship application. You don't have to apply for a scholarship. I don't care. I do respond to every application and I really, really enjoy learning about you and getting to respond and kind of have that in that interaction and response to the scholarship application. But I'll also put the registration link. I know April first seems really far away. It's not, but here's the other thing. When you register for that April four week group that starts on April first, which I think is a Wednesday, you get immediate access to the consistency course through the end of April. So if you were to join, say, on March 8, random date, then you would have access for the rest of March and all of April to the consistency course,

24:46plus you've got the four weeks of defense foundations or the entire month of defense foundations in April. So a lot to think about today. I would really love if you resonate, resonate. Yeah, my brain is glitching after this long day. If you resonate with any of this, check out the scholarship link. It takes like 10 minutes, not even maybe five minutes. But let's not let these core patterns continue to be the reason you stay stuck for years or even decades, because freedom is absolutely closer than you think it is. Sometimes it's not that we're not trying. It's that we're trying, we're pushing the wrong lever. The battle is not the plan and you're strict adherence to the plan. The battle is overcoming the pattern. All right, so check out this show description for the links to either the April defense foundations or the scholarship application. And I hope you guys have an amazing day.